KiHa 283 series
The KiHa 283 series, branded the Furico 283, is a tilting Japanese Limited Express diesel multiple unit. Built from 1995 to 2001 for JR Hokkaido, the KiHa 283 series is normally used on Super Ōzora services on the Hakodate Main Line, but also ply the Super Hokuto and Super Tokachi services as well. History Built from 1995 to 2001 by Fuji Heavy Industries (now known as Subaru Corporation) and JR Hokkaido's Naebo Works, the KiHa 283 series was meant to complement the older KiHa 281 series sets introduced three years prior. Branded the Furico 283, a three-car pre-production set was delivered to JR Hokkaido from Fuji Heavy Industries in 1995 for testing and evaluation. Full-production cars were delivered from 1996 until 2001. The sets entered service on 22 March 1997 with the introduction of the revised timetable. The tilting abilities of the cars allowed them to maintain high speeds around curves and shave off 40 minutes of travel time off the Ōzora services operated by the older KiHa 183 series sets. 54 cars are operational and are based at either Kushiro or Sapporo Depot. Design The cars have a modern streamlined style which would later be adopted by later Limited Express diesel multiple units ordered by JR Hokkaido, such as the KiHa 261 series. This design was started by the older KiHa 281 series sets. Specifications Construction is of stainless steel. Each car is 21.3 meters long, 2.84 meters wide and 4.05 meters tall. The cars all use N-DMF11HZA prime movers which produce 355 hp (265 kW) each. The sets have a bearing-guide tilting mechanism which allows them to tilt up to six degrees around curves. Incidents On 27 May 2011, a six-car KiHa 283 series set on the Super Ōzora 14 service bound for Sapporo, consisting of cars KiHa 283 1, KiHa 282 3001, KiRo 282 7, KiHa 282 1, KiHa 282 101 and KiHa 283 9, derailed and made an emergency stop at around 9:55pm JST inside the 685 meter-long (0.42 mi) No.1 Niniu Tunnel on the Sekishō Line. The entire six-car set was lit ablaze shortly after, with all six cars ending up being gutted by the fire. The cause of the incident was later determined to have been an issue with the reduction drive of car 3 (KiRo 282 7), having scraped on the wooden sleepers which caused the car's drivetrain to suffer a catastrophic failure, causing the fire. In response to this, four months after the accident, then-President of JR Hokkaido Naotoshi Nakajima committed suicide; the will he left behind encouraged current and future employees of JR Hokkaido to increase safety awareness in the company. As a grim reminder as to what happened during the incident, the front end of car KiHa 283 9 was sectioned and placed in JR Hokkaido's Employee Training Center to remind current and future employees of JR Hokkaido as to what could happen if the correct safety precautions are not taken to ensure that such an incident will not be repeated. References *Wikipedia.org Category:JR Group trains Category:Tilting trainsets Category:Diesel Trainsets Category:Fuji Heavy Industries locomotives